Total pages in book: 230
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
Blue eyes snap to meet mine. Prepare you. She senses the strangeness of the words. Good. She’ll have to learn quickly, since she came to me with no experience.
A virgin. Christ.
“Come,” I say, taking her elbow and leading her up the grand staircase. Perhaps if I were a better man I would sit her down in my office and explain how this will go. If I were a better man I would give her an option to walk away before we consummate the marriage.
I’m not a better man.
The door to my room stands open. The furniture is dark and stately.
We continue walking. Her rooms are lighter, white with champagne gold accents. A bath has already been drawn in the clawfoot tub. Water steams, swirling with rose petals. A large bed is in the middle of the room with pale blue silk sheets and a canopy. A round antique table sits to the side, surrounded by matching blue-satin chairs. Light streams in from the window, barely blocked by the translucent white fabric covering them.
Lila trails behind us, her hands behind her back. She’s well trained.
My wife is not, but that’s part of the fun. I’ll enjoy training her.
“Lila will service you now,” I tell my wife. “Stand still. Lila, you may undress her.”
It’s a test, of course.
My wife freezes in the well-lit room, her hands by her side. She wants to push Lila away. She wants to demand that I leave. There are a hundred conflicting desires flitting across her beautiful face. This is beyond some inner boundary of hers. Beyond what she imagined our wedding night would be like. She did not think another person would be in the room.
Little does she know.
“Did you think I wouldn’t see you naked?” I inquire softly.
She flinches. “No.”
“Or that I’d only come to you at night, when it’s dark and you’re under the covers?”
A flush stains her cheeks, but she lifts her chin. A queen could not be more imperious than she looks now. Her arms lift away from her body. She might be at a dressmaker’s for all the concern she shows. “Lila, you may begin.”
Lila works first at her gloves, pulling back the satin to reveal slender forearms. I turn an armchair in front of the fireplace to face Isabella. Then I sit and cross one leg over the other. Patience. Control. Command. No amount of wild lust will consume me.
Isabella keeps her eyes on mine while Lila moves behind her. The process of deconstructing the dress happens in stages. The wedding gown comes away first, lifted carefully over Isabella’s head and laid over one of the satin-backed chairs to wait. Then her petticoat comes away. It gave her gown its dreamlike shape for our ceremony.
Next comes her delicately embroidered corset.
My bride’s cheeks pink up at the loss of the corset, but she doesn’t look away. Neither do I. I’m marking time by the rise and fall of her chest.
“Stop,” I say.
Lila’s hands drop to her sides, her eyes going to the floor. “Come closer.”
Isabella glances at Lila, then takes a few tentative steps toward me. Watching her move in the corset and nothing else briefly tests my commitment to patience.
I gesture to Lila to continue. Her hands are efficient on the laces, and my bride stays straight-backed and blushing as the material comes away from her skin to reveal her breasts. Pink nipples. Creamy skin that will mark beautifully. I could tie her hands behind her back and hurt them now, but that’s not for our wedding night.
She’s starting to wonder when I’ll touch her, my perfect bride. I can see it in her eyes. She’s remembering my mouth between her spread thighs, hidden from her by the lace of her dress. There’s nothing to hide her from me now.
Another test. For her, and for me. A less-disciplined woman might not be able to stand the wait. Might disobey me and climb onto my lap before I’ve commanded it.
Isabella doesn’t. She stands before me in only her heels. A tremble in her arms suggests that she would very much like to cover herself. I wish she would so I could punish her now instead of waiting. It’s a powerful wish, and one I won’t indulge. She’s not ready. My cock disagrees. I overrule.
“Bathe her,” I say, gesturing to the steaming tub. “There’s lavender oil. Use it over every inch of her skin. Then dry her well.”
It’s torture to watch Lila’s clever hands working over my wife’s slippery skin. It’s an exercise in restraint, which is of course the entire point. Proving to myself that I can wait.
When the bath is done, the maid dries Isabella with a plush white towel.
I rise from my chair and put a hand on her elbow. My bride allows herself to be guided to the bed. At the edge, she hesitates. Her teeth worry at her bottom lip. The serene expression she wore as she came down the aisle slips back into place.